[Gazumper]

BBO Indy Tourney

S: AT97
H: K973
D: 5
C: AKQ9

S: Q85432
H: void
D: AKQT82
C: T

Contract 6S

I trump the heart Ace and lead the spade Queen, west follows with the Jack, I go up with the Ace and east plays the King. I lead the spade Ten from dummy and East asks for an undo, he wants his spade King back.

Should I grant the undo? Thanks.

[Free]

If you want to be friendly, do it, otherwise don't... I don't care what they say, they have time enough to point their mouse at the right spot and click, so in a tourney I wouldn't grant it. In f2f bridge, if your card is shown to all players, you can't take it back either. Too bad...

Free

[pbleighton]

To each his own - I'd grant the undo personally, but it is perfectly reasonable not to.

Peter

[keylime]

Tough call here, but here's the guideline I use about granted undos:

If the bid is made and then TWO passes and undo is asked, not granted - if there's one pass and their PARD bids and asks for undo, not granted. However if only one pass then ask, normally it's self-obvious that misclicked, undo granted.

With play of the cards, once a trick is quitted and ANY card played from ANY hand, no undo, because in real life you don't get to retract that card normally (certain situations for major penalty cards and such, you can). However, if the trick's not quitted yet and they ask, I normally grant it out of sportmanship.

It's a narrow interpretation but it prevents any possible chance of UI from happening.

[Gerardo]

As you wish, but seems too late to me.
But UNDOs are NOT automatically GRANTED, that's NOT a right.
UNDOs can be refused by anyone, at any circumstance, for any reason (or not at all).
" No UNDOs at all " is a nice approach (just not mine).
If you play that way with me, fine I'll play that way with you.

Said that, in the bidding, I grant undos to the last bidder, and if not last, I refuse and offer a redeal if available.
In the play, to the last player in current trick.

IMO, too much info around in the other circumstances

[jjsb]

i accept ALL undos whatever and dont ask for ; but we already discuss about that many time and it's just own decision by everyone . u dont have any obligation to accept undo at all . u dont even need any reason for refusing one

regards
syl

[helium]

i think the undo butten are for missclicks only, som use it in suituasjons that is so wrong its called cheeting on normal lips
i played a turney on bbo 3 days ago and the bidding went: pass-1nt-pass-3nt-pass-pass- my bid was now pass, but i missclicked and X , i asked for undo right away, before lho passed, and the undo was rejekted the opps xx and 11 tricks redoubled as result:)) nice etikk isnt it:))

helium

[mr1303]

When its clear that it is is misclick, then I will always grant.

It isn't sporting to take advantage of a clear misclick. That example of redoubling when you clearly didn't want to double just causes bad feeling in what is supposed to be a friendly match

[Rain]

I don't like granting undoes in general, although I do grant them when its clearly a misclick. I even grant them when its clearly not a misclick and I'm in a generous mood, but it leaves a bad impression of the person who asks for the undo. Personally, I have almost never asked for undoes, even when I accidentally click pass with 28 HCP.

Here it is not clearly a misclick. Remember lauria in Bermuda bowl? East may have thought you were going to finesse and readied the King automatically.

In any case, it may not be sporting to take advantage of a clear misclick, but is it sporting to ask to take back a played card in the first place? I think not....

Rain

[Trpltrbl]

Free, on Dec 29 2003, 03:06 AM, said:

If you want to be friendly, do it, otherwise don't... I don't care what they say, they have time enough to point their mouse at the right spot and click, so in a tourney I wouldn't grant it. In f2f bridge, if your card is shown to all players, you can't take it back either. Too bad...

Free

I a normal game were it is clearly a misclick, I will give an undo. But when playing tourneys I try to go by rules, like ACBL, to have some guidelines. And then a card played is a card played. Thank God y can't lead out of turn here hehehe
And for newer players it does take a little getting used too, but after few times y shud be ok.

Mike

[bglover]

I am vehemently opposed to people who do not grant "obvious" misclick undos.

It is their right not to grant them. It is my right to never play with them. Last week I played with someone who was in disguise. The reason she was in disguise I presume is because she knows I no longer want to play with her due to her stance on undos.

Well, a few hands into our session I made an obvious misclick and asked for an immediate undo. Rather than grant it I was interrogated as to whether it was really a misclick or was I not paying attention and now wanted the benefit of her largesse (with the clear implication that if I got the grant it would be cheating).

I got up from the table instead. Since, from these actions, I knew who the person now was I told her in a friendly manner that I no longer would play with her and that she might want to reconsider her position on undos.

I recommended to her she either NEVER or ALWAYS grant reasonable undos and stop that 3d degree BS. How she handles it in the future is no longer my concern. She agreed to never play with or against me again. That is all i wanted.

[mikestar]

As a former club director, my take is that a played card is a played card. In the long run, this causes less friction than trying to distinguish misclicks from dumb plays from outright cheating. Similarly for bidding misclicks. If the software allows a quick retraction, this is fine, but after the next bid or play is seen, the person maikng the mistake can gain an advantage by asking for an undo. If perfect equity is not possible, we should protect the side which didn't make an error, not the side who did.

This sort of thing happens all the time in f2f bridge and while it tends to harm the side making the error, this is not always true. In af 2f game with a novice, I responded 4NT to her 1S. She thought I bid 1N (which we were playing NF) and passed. We missed 6S needing only trumps not worse than 3-1. Everyone else in the room bid it. But as it happened, trumps were 4-0 and 4NT making on the nose was a cold top.

[bglover]

Well.. since I wrote last I played a few hands and had a couple of undo incidents come up.

The problem with playing online with multiple partners is that sometimes you honestly forget agreements. Today I was playing with someone who plays Bergen raises are in effect even by passed hand.

I completely forgot we played it til it got around to the passout seat... then i stated to the table "I forgot our agreement sorry" and then asked for an undo. It was granted but then one of the players left imeediately. Maybe I should have asked for a redeal instead. That might have been the better solution.

My point of course, is that it was an honest mistake and they come up more in online bridge than f2f because of 1. the nature of the mechanics of computers (mouse slips do occur) and 2. the average online player has many more partners than would the f2f player and there are that many more agreements to keep straight.

Perhaps most importantly, there is nothing at stake besides having some good practice when playing online. No masterpoints.. no awards (usually anyway).

I can see where MAYBE in a tourney not granting undos might be allowed, but not in the open room.

[Trpltrbl]

Actually on this hand it really matters if it is MP's or IMP's since if it was Imps it doesn't really matter, overtrick or not, y r talking about a very very small imps difference something like 0.01, maybe little more or little less depending on amount of players. In MP's ofcourse it mite be differerence between a 65% and a 100%, roughly

Mike

[Free]

It all depends if I know my ops or not. When playing strangers, I almost never grant an undo in playing, except if it would be playing really stupid and they ask for an undo immediately. In bidding I grant the undo if they passed (and I didn't bid), but otherwise I normally don't (except if it's obvious, examples slam exploring for H and they bid 6S).

If my ops can't handle that, they may ask for a redeal and maybe I'll do that if it seems reasonable. But what I find really annoying is when people ask for an undo every 2 games! I played someone like that once, and I'll never do that again. It's just too easy to keep on asking for undos. I personally never ask for an undo except if it's a really ridiculous misclick, otherwise I accept the consequences.

Playing against friends is normally more relax, so I grant more, or redeal when I think too much information has passed.

My opinion about misclicks (more than 1): it's a result of being lazy and if you keep asking for undos, opponents won't like to play with you. In all time I played online (a few years), I had about 1 or 2 misclicks, so unless you got Parkinson you have not much of an excuse...

[rona_]

Yes I would grant the undo. You make your contract anyway, as will everyone else who bid the slam. If you get a top score because someone made an honest mistake, and can live with it, then so be it. I know that when I misclick, I get so nervous that it takes me forever to find the undo button, and sometimes click redeal by mistake

I think we can safely say that not only young people play bridge on BBO. Older people have slower reflexes. Sick people have slower reflexes too. Since not everyone is young and healthy..........Well, that's the way I think.

I grant undos to everyone who asks for one and never presume that someone is trying to cheat. Whether they misclicked or just changed their mind, is fine by me. Players are always trying to speed up as inevitably someone at the table will say..'Play", or "This is too slow", so mistakes are bound to happen. My suggestion would be: If you have a train to catch, don't come here to play bridge.

[JRG]

Free, on Jan 10 2004, 04:58 PM, said:

[...snip]

Playing against friends is normally more relax, so I grant more, or redeal when I think too much information has passed.

My opinion about misclicks (more than 1): it's a result of being lazy and if you keep asking for undos, opponents won't like to play with you. In all time I played online (a few years), I had about 1 or 2 misclicks, so unless you got Parkinson you have not much of an excuse...

I don't think I agree with you -- at least not completely. Yes, there are people who are plain lazy or sloppy.

However, there are people with multiple computers (some with mice, some with touchpads, etc.). There are also those of us with relatively slow dial-up connections.

Then there are simply those of us who, with age or otherwise, simply do not have a lot of manual dexterity. There are people with arthritis and other disabilites. Simply put, it is not equally easy for everyone to position the mouse pointer accurately and then click the button.

Examples from personal experience:

When I first started playing on BBO, I frequently misplayed to the first trick (I had the mouse pointer positioned over a card and just as I was clicking, the hand was resorted with trumps on the right). Yes - I learnt to wait.

I played a few times using my wife's notebook computer. She doesn't like the touchpad settings changed and she has it set so that "tapping" the touchpad is the same as clicking the mouse button -- oh boy! Needless to say, I stopped using her machine (but I had tried it for a couple of sessions -- too many requests for Undo's). I've come across notebooks with various versions of Windows that CANNOT turn of this "tap = click" behaviour (yuck!). (I suspect if the owners were sufficiently technically literate, they could download newer drivers to fix this problem if they wanted to.)

There is a very pleasant woman on BBO who has bad arthritis in her hands. If she EVER asks for an Undo, I ALWAYS grant it.

[inquiry]

Quote

When I first started playing on BBO, I frequently misplayed to the first trick (I had the mouse pointer positioned over a card and just as I was clicking, the hand was resorted with trumps on the right). Yes - I learnt to wait.

Hi John,

I long ago switched from the "card view" to the "text view" where spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs are each on their own line. No rearragement, no need to wait. A side effect is all my misclicks have decreased as you have more room when pointing at a card to hit the right one.

ben

[Free]

Ok JRG, I understand, but I also think that some people should realise that it isn't great to play against someone who asks for undos all the time. If it happens, so be it, but if it happens 5 times in 10 games, there's definetly something wrong.

Maybe a special version of the software (or an option we can switch on or off) could prevent more misclicks. Then people have to confirm every card play and/or every bid they make.
It won't be the most user-friendly, but I might attract more people who otherwise couldn't play well, and it will help those who already play who have difficulties. It would surely prevent a lot of misclicks of people with for example arthritis. Just a thought...